volleysparkle Makeup

How To | Step by Step

To prep for the eye look, I started with priming my lids with the Lorac Behind The Scenes Eye Primer. As a transition shade, I applied the Nyx Nude Matte Shadow in Craving all over my crease, keeping it very soft.

Directly in the crease, along with the inner and outer portion of the lid, I applied a darker grey, Smoke from the Stila In The Know Palette.

On the center of the lids, I used a bit of white shadow, as always I used Inglot #318. I blended the white into the grey on either sides of the lid to create a soft gradient.

To balance out the look, I applied some more of Smoke to my lower lashline, and blended it out. In my waterline I applied the Sephora Nano Liner in Pure White.

I went back in with more of Inglot #318 to highlight my inner corners. I used just a little bit of this color under my brows, as well.

I used the Jordana Best Lash Extreme mascara on my top and bottom lashes and applied the Eyelure Volume 101 Lashes to finish the look.

The LA Girl Glazed Lip Paint In Whisper is a pale neutral pink liquid lip color with a glossy finish.

LA Girl Whisper Glazed Lip Paint

The LA Girl Lip Paints come in a squeeze tube and have an angled plastic applicator. I feel that the applicator makes it a bit difficult to get a precise application, so I prefer to use a lip brush with this product. The Lip Paints have a subtle minty scent, and although I really dislike mint, it isn’t too strong so I can wear the lip product just fine. Whisper, despite being a pale color, is super pigmented and looks very smooth and even on the lips. Although the product has the shine of a lip gloss, it does not feel like one on the lips, the formula feels rather thin and comfortable. Once the gloss fades, you are left with a satin finish liquid lipstick look, and it remains feeling comfortable on the lips.

The Urban Decay Naked Smoky Palette is the fourth full sized shadow palette in the Naked family. Like the others, Naked Smoky is made up of twelve shadows. The color scheme of the palette is mostly cool toned, designed, clearly, for smoky eye looks.

Urban Decay Naked Smoky Palette

The Naked Smokey Palette comes in a hard, plastic package with a really cool smokey design. It is definitely my favorite packaging out of the Naked Palettes. Unlike most palettes, the light shades can be found on either end of the palette, and the dark shades are located in the middle. Originally I was not interested in the palette since it is marketed for doing smokey eye looks, but once I swatched it, I was sold and I had to finish my Naked Palette collection. While you definitely could create a smokey look using the palette, it has enough lighter and midtone shadows to create a variety of eye looks. Something I am not crazy about with this palette is that there really is a lack of transition shades. Combust is the closest thing to one, but it is still a bit on the light side. So, in order to use the darker shades from the palette, I would suggest adding a separate transition shade to make the blending process easier. The shadow formula is fairly consistent across the board. The only shade that is lacking a bit in pigmentation is Armor.

The Nyx Highlight & Contour Pro Palette comes with four contour and four highlight shades.

Nyx Highlight & Contour Pro Palette

The Highlight & Contour Pro Palette is rather big and bulky and has a clear lid. The palette is designed to be able to remove shades and replace or refill them, but I find it difficult to actually get the pans out of the palette. The texture of the shades is quite soft, but they do have some significant powder kick up, which is not always the best for highlight and contour shades. The color variety within this palette should suit most skin tones. Because of this, personally, a couple of the colors are much to dark to be used on my skin, but I plan on replacing those shades with blushes and saving them for use on other people. Although this palette is up-there in price when it comes to drugstore items, it is more affordable than similar highend products. My favorite contour palette is the one from IT Cosmetics, and I will say that the Nyx palette is comparable. The only thing I’m not crazy about is, as I mentioned earlier, the bulky packaging, but that can be overlooked for the product quality.

The Kat Von D Everlasting Liquid Lipstick in Requiem is a medium grey toned lavender with a matte finish.

Kat Von D Requiem Everlasting Liquid Lipstick

The Kat Von D Everlasting Liquid Lipsticks come in long, thin tubes with a cute tattoo design. They come with a typical doe foot applicator. Requiem has intense color payoff, not needing to be built up on the lips for an opaque look. It dries to a very matte finish, fairly quickly, and feels pretty comfortable on the lips. Any matte liquid lipstick is going to feel at least a bit dry on the lips, but Requiem is pretty comfortable as far as matte liquid lipsticks go. I personally love purple lip colors, so Requiem is right up my alley, and could maybe be a gateway into purple lips for the nude lips lover.

The Tarte Tarteist Lash Paint Mascara claims to give lashes "2700% volume" according to their website. ​The mascara comes in a black tube with a cute gold lid with a black splatter pattern. The wand on the mascara is a fairly simple spiky rubber brush. It reminds me of the Benefit They’re Real Mascara, but not quite as spiky. The mascara’s formula is not too wet, which is a positive thing to me, since my lashes work best with a drier formulation. The mascara gives me a good amount of thickness, length and volume (not quite 2700% more...). It doesn't really stand out in any of the categories--while I do like the product and the results it gives me, I'm not sure if it is worth the high end price tag. However, if high end mascaras are your thing, I would give this one a try.

Rimmel Magnif'eyes Double Ended Shadow + Liner in Kissed By a Rose Gold & Queens of the Bronzed Age

The Rimmel Magnif’eyes Double Ended Shadow + Liner is a cream shadow stick and khol kajal eyeliner duo. The range has only five shades, and the two I picked up are Kissed by a Rose Gold & Queens of the Bronzed Age. Kissed by a Rose Gold has a gorgeous metallic rose gold cream shadow accompanied by a dark brown liner. Queens of the Bronzed Age has a metallic bronze cream shadow and a shimmery champagne liner. I don’t usually gravitate towards dual ended products, but these duos are not gimmicky whatsoever. The cream shadow and liner are both amazingly creamy and smooth. Queens of the Bronzed Age and Kissed by a Rose Gold both have consistent formulas with intense pigmentation. What makes these duos even better is that they are smudge proof, waterproof and incredibly long lasting. The only downside to the formula is that it sets pretty quickly, so if you are wanting to blend out the color, you will need to work quickly.

Rimmel Magnif'eyes Double Ended Shadow + Liner in Queens of the Bronzed Age

Rimmel Magnif'eyes Double Ended Shadow + Liner in Queens of the Bronzed Age

How To | Step by Step

To provide my lids with an even base, I first applied the Nyx Dark Circle Concealer and set it with an ivory shadow. For a transition shade in my crease, I started off with Lavender from the Lorac Mega Pro 2 Palette.

Next in the crease I used a darker warm purple from the Lorac AfterGLO palette, keeping it in a rounded shape to keep consistent with the halo look. I applied this shadow onto the lid as well, avoiding the center.

To further deepen up the crease, I used Purple from the Mega Pro 2 Palette, again keeping the shape rounded. I ended up going back and forth with the three purples to get the colors as intense and blended as I wanted. I also bought this shade onto the lid, but not to completely cover the lighter purple.

As per usual, I used the same crease colors on my lower lash line to balance out the eyes.​

On the center of the lids, I used a bright shimmery ivory from the Essence All About Sunrise Palette.

The Tarte Grav3yard Girl Swamp Queen palette is a twelve shadow collection in collaboration with Bunny, AKA Grav3yard Girl. I have been a fan of hers for years now, and am happy to support her!

Tarte Grav3yard Girl Swamp Queen Palette

The palette has a wood grain design, which I find super cute. The inside of the palette has a large mirror. Within the twelve shadows, three of them are much larger, which reminds me of Too Faced’s style of palettes. The shadows' names are all inspired by Bunny and her videos, which is super cool since I have been subscribed to her for a while. Each row is broken down pretty much by a color family--the top row is warm, peachy neutrals, the middle row is more on the pink side & the bottom row gets more of a violet tone. Let me just start off by saying, the pigmentation of these shadows is amazing. Every shade is buttery and has intense color payoff. I love all the colors in the palette, even the pink, which is not a shade I tend to gravitate towards. The only thing that would make this palette better for me would be a matte dark brown or black shade for adding definition at the lashline. Overall, I love this palette and am quite happy that I got my hands on it!

Metallic lip colors are the newest trend in lips, so more and more brands are releasing their take on the trend. I picked up three shades of the Wet n Wild Coloricon Metallic Liquid Lipstick: My Tulips Are Sealed, Indigo Your Own Way & Peony Express.

Wet N Wild Coloricon Metallic Liquid Lipstick

The Coloricon Metallic Liquid Lipsticks come in a clear tube and have a doe foot applicator that sort of dips in the center. The product is quite thin and glides easily onto the lips. Although it is a liquid lipstick, they do not set in place. However, if you blot your lips--or even attempt to rub the color off--you will be left with the metallic finish and a more subtle version of the color. The colors do not look very metallic when swatched on my arm, but you can really see the finish in the lip swatches. These three colors are not the type of shades I typically go for, but this collection of lipsticks was fairly small, so I picked my favorite of the bunch.